Embracing The Modern Age (Super Big Ltd.)

Album Reviews
[HERE’S YOUR FUTURE] It’s hard to fault Blues Skies for
Black Hearts for being out of touch. The power-poppy quartet—led by
bespectacled frontman Pat Kearns—sticks to a (relatively) simple
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Bar Reviews
If the first thing you hear when
entering a bar is “I swear the jukebox is free,” there are two possible
scenarios: You’ve found a gold mine, or someone is already stupid drunk.
And while the
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Our top three picks for record-store day.

Headout
These days, almost every hobby, obsession
and food gets its own holiday. April is full of especially weird
celebrations—it’s National Pecan Month, in case you forgot about the
existence of the “all-American nut”—and Saturday, April 16, is no
exception: It’s National Eggs Benedict Day
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A few months ago I met local musician and producer Skyler Norwood at Beulahland to to chat about his new projects over a few pints. Norwood, easily excitable, was practically buzzing the moment he walked in the room, blushing and speaking in hushed tones about Point Juncture, WA's new record, which he had just finished mastering earlier that day. "I think it's the best thing we've ever done, for r...
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My lord, what amazing album art! It's hard to distance the music on 31Knots' seventh album, Trump Harm, from the record's shirtless, bong-water constructed, Photoshop-gone-horribly-awry cover image—and the back cover, which sees bandleader Joe Haege, um, getting off to some New Age-y sunset shit. But longstanding Portland trio 31Knots isn't a joke band, even if its art—and many of its songs—...
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The Dodos return to Portland and find their mojo.

Music Stories
Most of the time, as the story goes, a
band cleans up its sound to lead to a bigger audience. But when San
Francisco frantic-folk duo the Dodos were recruited by noted Northwest
indie-rock producer
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Life Ruiner (Apes Tapes)

Album Reviews
[LO-FI BREAKTHROUGH] On my last count, local frenetic-pop
sextet And And And released 45 songs in the past year. I’m probably a
little off—does a mixtape count as one track?—but the sheer amou
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When Liz Harris gets going, she just can't stop. Recording under the moniker Grouper, Harris has crafted some of the most beautiful late-night music to come out of the Pacific Northwest in a long time, with treated guitar, swirling feedback, and her ghostly voice dominating my post-midnight soundtrack for most of 2008 with the elemental Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill. Now Grouper is back with a ne...
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Akron/Family enters the void.

Music Stories
When it was time for Akron/Family to send out copies of
its new album, the experimental-folk rock band abandoned the usual
channels of distribution—giving promo copies to the press, streaming the
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